March reignites Ambon violence

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The worst outbreak of violence in Indonesia's Maluku province for more than two years has left as many as 20 people dead and more than 100 injured.

Indonesian police yesterday sent more than 200 paramilitary police and two extra army battalions to the provincial capital, Ambon, 2300 kilometres east of Jakarta, to try to stop the rioting, which began on Sunday.

Parts of the Christian University of Maluku were burnt, along with around 200 houses, as residents fled. The director of Hauwlussy Hospital, Yopi Manuputty, said he had received 13 casualties since Sunday and two had since died. Most had serious machete wounds and several had been shot.

Indonesian Interior Minister Hari Sabarno said yesterday that the death toll had reached 18, with 107 injured, although other sources put the death toll at more than 20 and the official news agency Antara said more than 130 people had been injured.

The violence is the worst since the Malino peace accords were signed by Muslims and Christians in 2002, ending three years of fighting that left around 5000 people dead in several provinces.

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The latest fighting began when mainly Christian supporters of a separatist group called Republic of South Maluku (RMS) marched through Ambon on Sunday morning.

According to Jakarta Post reporters, the marchers jeered Muslims, and Christians and Muslims armed with homemade rifles and machetes later formed lines along four streets. In the fighting that followed, United Nations Development Program buildings were attacked and burnt. No UN staff were injured.

Yusuf Kalla, the leading candidate to become Indonesia's next vice-president and architect of the Malino accords, called on security forces to act. "The Government should have banned (Sunday's march)," he said.

An expert on Maluku at the University of Indonesia, Thamrin Amal Tomagola, said the UN was seen by some Muslims as partial to Christians, which might explain why their offices were attacked.

"(But) the real trigger was the complacency of the Maluku police," he said. "They should have anticipated that every April 25, RMS supporters celebrate the group's anniversary."